Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Think back a year ago. Talk was all about the Montebello SPP Summit and the self interests being advanced by the single gene pool known as the North American Competitiveness Council. (NACC). Single gene pool because the NACC is made up of 10 look alike CEO’s from Canada and an equal number from the US and Mexico. Evidently our political “leadership” thinks that total capitulation to the whims of corporate interests is the way to go. Yippee.

Emblematic of the Montebello summit was the infiltration or otherwise peaceful demonstrators with masked, rock toting members of the Quebec police.......and the Jelly Bean agenda advanced by Canada’s Jelly Bean Tycoon, David Ganong.

The jelly bean agenda philosophy would see Canadian government doing whatever is expedient or efficient for business. Apparently the Jelly bean Tycoon’s ability to compete was totally frustrated by the fact that he had to package his jelly beans in two different packages. One for the US. One for Canada. He wanted one type of package, oblivious to the fact that Canada is a bilingual country. So who better to go crying to than Stephen Harper and George Bush?

Both George Bush and Stephen Harper thought this idea was swell, and that business interests are paramount in our society. The same myopic thinking led to Harper reneging on his income trust promise after falling under the spell of a few of these NACC folk, like Paul Desmarais Jr. Dominic D’Allessandro and Michael Sabia.

Fast forward to today.

These listeriosis deaths of today, caused by the grossly lax inspections standards at Maple Leaf Foods are simply one manifestation of world governed by the Jelly Bean Agenda. The lunatic fringe was making these kind of predictions a year ago. Of course no one listened as the lunatic fringe is lunatic and concerned about public safety. The lunatic fringe also just happen to be right in terms of the cost to Canadians of totally capitulating to the whims and wishes of groups like the NACC....the SPP...or Stephen Harper.

The death toll is now 12, but the NACC will be happy to know that Maple Leaf Foods shares (TSX:MFI) rose more than four per cent Wednesday, rebounding after hitting a new low a day earlier amid a nationwide recall in response to a listeriosis outbreak.

I agree, Chretien was real loser...he didn't want to play GI Joe with George Bush the way wind-up Stevie Harper wanted to:

Canadians Stand With YouWall Street Journal | 3/28/03 |

By STEPHEN HARPER and STOCKWELL DAY

Today, the world is at war. A coalition of countries under the leadership of the U.K. and the U.S. is leading a military intervention to disarm Saddam Hussein. Yet Prime Minister Jean Chretien has left Canada outside this multilateral coalition of nations.

This is a serious mistake. For the first time in history, the Canadian government has not stood beside its key British and American allies in their time of need. The Canadian Alliance -- the official opposition in parliament -- supports the American and British position because we share their concerns, their worries about the future if Iraq is left unattended to, and their fundamental vision of civilization and human values. Disarming Iraq is necessary for the long-term security of the world, and for the collective interests of our key historic allies and therefore manifestly in the national interest of Canada. Make no mistake, as our allies work to end the reign of Saddam and the brutality and aggression that are the foundations of his regime, Canada's largest opposition party, the Canadian Alliance will not be neutral. In our hearts and minds, we will be with our allies and friends. And Canadians will be overwhelmingly with us.

But we will not be with the Canadian government.

Modern Canada was forged in large part by war -- not because it was easy but because it was right. In the great wars of the last century -- against authoritarianism, fascism, and communism -- Canada did not merely stand with the Americans, more often than not we led the way. We did so for freedom, for democracy, for civilization itself. These values continue to be embodied in our allies and their leaders, and scorned by the forces of evil, including Saddam Hussein and the perpetrators of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. That is why we will stand -- and I believe most Canadians will stand with us -- for these higher values which shaped our past, and which we will need in an uncertain future.

Messrs. Harper and Day are the leader and shadow foreign minister, respectively, of the Canadian Alliance.

TORONTO AND OTTAWA — Canadian meat inspectors and the Conservative government failed to learn crucial lessons from a deadly listeria outbreak a decade ago, experts on the bacterium suggested yesterday, as the food-safety crisis spread further with three more deaths, including that of a woman in Saskatchewan, under investigation.

And the federal agency responsible for food safety, this year, began to let the industry conduct its own food testing, The Globe and Mail has learned.

A leaked Conservative cabinet document that outlined plans for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to allow the food industry a greater role in the inspection process raised the ire of opposition politicians last week.

However, some of the plans have been in place since March 31, according to a CFIA manager and an official from the union that represents the federal inspectors.

At the Maple Leaf plant behind the listeria outbreak, a single federal inspector was relegated to auditing company paperwork and had to deal with several other plants, the manager and the union official said, contradicting the impression that Conservative officials had left last week that full-time watchdogs were on-site.

Under the new system, federal inspectors do random product tests only three or four times a year at any given plant. And meat packers are required to test each type of product only once a month.

Under the old system, inspectors had a more hands-on role on the plant floor, did more of the tests themselves and had more freedom to investigate, said former CFIA inspector Bob Kingston, who is national president of the Agriculture Union, a branch of the Public Service Alliance of Canada.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper rejected any suggestions that the federal government is not doing enough.

Federal inspectors across Canada are concerned about the new inspection procedure begun earlier this year, Mr. Kingston said.

Under the Conservative's new rules, instead of heading to the plant floor to inspect with their own eyes, inspectors are sent to the office to simply confirm that the meat packer has performed the required tests and the results are satisfactory, Mr. Kingston said.

"We don't swab for listeria any more. The industry does all that themselves," he said. "They just document all this stuff. We read their reports. If their reports say they do everything fine, then they do everything fine."

The Conservative government's changes are the subject of heated controversy as academics and the opposition express concerns over the few details that have emerged so far. The 2008 budget indicated the CFIA was asked to find savings. The leaked document indicated savings would be found by transferring some meat-inspection duties to industry.

OTTAWA — The Canadian government strongly opposed tougher U.S. rules to prevent listeria and lobbied the United States to accept Canada's more lenient standards, internal documents reveal.

Briefing notes prepared by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency for an April 7, 2006, meeting with the board of directors of the Canadian Meat Council outline how both industry and the Canadian government were frustrated with the increased precautions the United States was demanding.

Further, the documents show the CFIA agreed to the meat packing and processing industry's request to end a 20-year-old practice of having inspectors issue reports and rankings on facilities. The Canadian Meat Council complained the reports were ending up in the hands of reporters through the Access to Information Act, leading to bad coverage.

Jim Laws, the executive director of the council, which represents Canada's meat packers and processors, said yesterday that he believes he attended the meeting.

He said Canada dropped the inspection reports and rankings as part of a host of changes brought in on March 31.

"It was an archaic way of rating plants that was not logical," he said. "Part of the concern was that this information, it was available to the public ... it was indeed causing our members some grief."

Mr. Laws said the industry has always lobbied for Canada to adopt the U.S. standards to avoid having two sets of rules.

The government documents indicate Canada's meat producers were frustrated that they must add more stringent safeguards to their production lines when producing meat for export to the U.S. market.

"Industry would prefer a single set of standards for both the Canadian and American market," states the document prepared by Dr. Richard Arsenault of the CFIA, anticipating what meat council board members would tell CFIA at the meeting. "[The CMC] will also express their frustration about the recent [United States Department of Agriculture] imposition of product testing for Listeria monocytogenes and of daily visits in U.S.-eligible meat processing plants."

Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz, who is responsible for the CFIA, hinted this week that Canada might move toward U.S. practices of preventing listeria, such as the pasteurization of packaged meat. But the documents reveal the CFIA lobbied the United States to adopt Canada's rules.

"The CFIA is working at bilateral levels to convince the USDA that its system is equivalent to theirs in order to minimize the need for extra import rules," the document says.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has not backed down from its requirement that all producers of ready-to-eat meat must pasteurize or boil products in the package to kill Listeria monocytogenes, add chemicals to prevent the bacteria, or allow more rigorous plant inspections. It was unclear yesterday which option Maple Leaf took to comply with U.S. standards.

However, it does not appear those higher U.S. standards were enough to prevent the current outbreak.

Canadian plants approved to ship to the U.S., which include the Maple Leaf plant in Toronto that was the source of the outbreak, must meet the USDA standards. The CFIA said yesterday that products from that plant are the same regardless of whether they are for Canadian or U.S. consumers.

Paul Mayers, associate vice-president of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, acknowledged there is a different standard for Canadian meat plants that aren't approved to ship to the United States.

"There are some additional requirements that may come into play in relation to export certification of products," he said, but insisted all meat in Canada is safe. "We focus on a single level of hygiene and safety for all consumers of products produced in Canada."

The briefing notes were obtained by researcher Ken Rubin through the Access to Information Act and outline Canada's objections to the U.S. rules, which were imposed in response to a deadly listeria outbreak in 1998.

"The CFIA does not agree with this [USDA] approach, and disagrees with a number of specific USDA requirements (e.g., daily visits, finished product testing for Listeria monocytogenes), [but] it has implemented the required changes to maintain Canada's access to the important U.S. market. The CFIA will only be successful in convincing the USDA to return to previous arrangements if Canadian operators can demonstrate that they are operating in full compliance with all USDA rules," it states.

In addition, the document indicates the industry successfully lobbied to end inspection reports and rankings of its facilities.

"The [Canadian Meat Council] has sought changes to the existing system because ratings and reports are used by the media through the Access to Information Act ... and there is a misperception that products coming from a 'B' or 'marginally acceptable' facility are less safe." ***

EVENTS

Income Trust Halloween VigilThanks to all who participated in both the Ottawa and Calgary vigils to mark the anniversary of the announcement.

WE"D LIKE SOME ANSWERS

As you well know, the ‘income trust thing’ has grown beyond the
question of whether fair taxes are paid on income from trusts. It’s
become a giant dirty snowball, and as it rolls forward it accumulates
more and more bulk. There are so many unanswered questions. Let's list a few and invite our "Accountable" government and our free press to provide some much-needed answers.

It is said “Trusts are inefficient use of capital. Why?” Two
related questions are ‘Whose money is it, anyway?’, and ‘Do Canadian
investors have a free and efficient market?’

How can information that is already in the public domain at SEDAR
make for a state secret? How could such information be used to harm
the Canadian national interest? And who would cause the harm?

Why won’t the Canadian media investigate the falsehoods and
misrepresentations told by the Minister of Finance to a committee of
Parliament? Was the Minister in contempt of Parliament?

Why won’t the Canadian media report (a) government tax revenues
gained from BCE in 2006 when BCE was a corporation to (b) government
tax revenues that would be gained in 2007 from BCE, if BCE had been
allowed to proceed to a trust, and (c) government tax revenues that
will be gained in 2007 from BCE, when BCE ownership has been carved
up as 45% foreign ownership and 55% large Canadian pension fund
ownership?